BEA to Open to Public on Last Day

BookExpo America [1] (BEA) has announced plans to open the trade show floor to the public on Thursday, June 7, the last day of this year’s event at New York’s Javits Convention Center. The leap into “Direct to Consumer engagement – D2C” was announced on Tuesday on The Bean [2], the blog of BEA Show Director Steve Rosato.

Plans call for BEA to partner with publishers, local booksellers, libraries, and others in the industry, Rosato said, “to make a very limited and exclusive amount of tickets available to BEA for Thursday in 2012. Tickets will be exclusive and present a unique opportunity for tastemakers and passionate readers to get a glimpse behind the curtain.” Details and logistics regarding the change to admission for the long-standing industry-only show are still being worked out.

“BEA is keenly aware of the need to protect the traditional needs that BEA has always served as the singular gathering place for the industry,” Rosato said. And it will “continue to prioritize the value of the B2B element of BEA, delivering booksellers, buyers that are new non-traditional buyers, providing world class education, being the largest rights fair in North America, while serving all the relevant components of the publishing industry that need a place to connect.”

The change to the trade show admission policy is the second part of a BEA strategy to engage consumers. The first part is “BEA’s ambitious initiative to stream many of the author events and make them widely available via the web,” Rosato said.